


Of Parties and Snickerdoodles

by myhomeistheshire



Category: Check Please! (Webcomic)
Genre: Fluff and Angst, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-26
Updated: 2018-11-26
Packaged: 2019-08-29 16:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 739
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16747768
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myhomeistheshire/pseuds/myhomeistheshire
Summary: Jack just isn't a party person.





	Of Parties and Snickerdoodles

Jack is at a party, and it is going terribly.

 

    To clarify, this is not just any Haus party. This is _the_ Haus party. There are people eating his crackers and cheese who he’s never even _seen_ on campus before, not to mention talked to or gotten to know. It always astounds him how many people go here. So, his house is filled with strangers. Puke-y, break-the-antique-tibetan-masks kind of strangers. He’s never a fan of this brand of guests, and he’s already been feeling off all day. Courtesy of two morning texts from his mother - short, sweet, normal. Threw him for a complete loop, as always.

 

 _Hi Jack, just checking in!_ The first text from his mother reads. Then, _I want you to know that no matter what, we both love you very much._ He hears the emphasis on _both_ , and this is Montreal all over again, with his father’s outbursts hanging in the air until his mother cleaned them up. He clenches the phone a little too hard, then jams it in his pocket. He’s not in Montreal any more. His parents (father) don’t (doesn’t) dictate his choices anymore.

 

His phone buzzes now, and he almost doesn’t hear it over the noise. _suck it up and join the fun, captain buzzkill,_ Shitty’s sent him, _it’s just your anti-social programming. come do a kegstand_

 

And a part of him wishes he could do this - be here, with everyone, without feeling like his insides are splitting open. Laugh, drink, make memories. But the bigger part of him just wants to leave.

 

 _Is something wrong with me?_ He types, but doesn’t hit send. He leaves it there on his screen, tempting fate just like he always does. Waiting for something - _anything -_ to happen. But fate, it seems, doesn’t have a temper.

 

And maybe this is just the way he gets at parties, but it’s just. Not just. He’s in his Haus, with his friends, but for some reason he always loses them and he’s surrounded by strangers making out and laughing and just being Too Much, and it isn’t _just._ Not anymore. Not for a while.

 

He slips upstairs, and he splashes water on his face, and when he looks into the mirror he sees the way his face is pale and stretched, how his knuckles are white and his eyes are beyond pleading - they’re beyond hope. This - _this,_  isn’t just.

 

“Jack?” Bittle’s hesitant voice comes from the doorway, and he gives a knock like an afterthought.

    “Just give me a sec!” Jack calls, then splashes more water on his face before towelling it off. There, he looks - well, he looks better than he did five minutes ago. He pulls open the door. “Just brushing my teeth,” he says breezily, looking down at Bitty’s small frame.

    “Oh, are you headed off to bed?” Bitty asks, and his cheery tone is a little - off? “I mean, that’s absolutely fine if you are, you’re probably beat and all that - I just wanted to check if, um, you’re all right?” He hesitates, and Jack wonders if he’s wearing the Angry Captain face. He hopes not. He just wants to sleep, and to stop thinking. Bittle being here helps neither of these things.

    “I’m fine, I’m just -” _just, just, just_ “not a party person. They tire me out.”

    “Oh!” Bittle brightens. “Well, okay. Do you want some snickerdoodles before you go to bed?” And Jack half expects him to pull a tray of cookies from behind his back; but no, instead he leans towards the stairs like he’s ready to dash down to the kitchen at a moment’s notice. Jack almost smiles.

    “No thanks, Bittle. I’m just gonna head to bed.” And he waits for the _sure, old man_ chirp, but maybe Bittle sees more than he lets on to, because he lets it go.

    “Goodnight, Jack.”

    “‘Night, Bitty.”

 

    Jack turns around and lets himself into his room, firmly locking it behind him. He slips into his pj’s and curls up under the covers, ready for the blissful unawareness of sleep. Instead, he thinks of snickerdoodles. And then Kent. And this somehow leads him to Bitty.

 

    He tosses and turns for an hour, before his phone buzzes. He grabs it from the nightstand, grateful for the excuse to escape his own thoughts.

 

    _if you ever need anything,_ is all Bittle wrote. Jack reads it four times, then falls asleep with it tucked to his chest.

 

 


End file.
